Tag Archives: Sleeper

Okay, so before we move on to this week’s “Deep Sleep”, I’d like to first acknowledge the endless thanks and bountiful praise from the loyal readers who picked up Jacob Tamme and played him last week. He scored the 4th-most points out of all TEs, and from the looks of it, he should put up WR-esque numbers on a week-to-week basis until the end of the season. He dropped a few passes, but it’s encouraging that Manning targeted him 9 times – even on crucial 3rd downs. Manning obviously trusts him, and with a bit more time, Tamme’s hands should become fly-paper. If I were a braver man, I’d even say he’ll score more each week than the other 84. Man, I’m feeling adventurous today. If Manning trusts him, I trust him. Hold me to it.

Anyway, congratulations to those of you who managed to snag him off the waivers. If you were a doubting Thomas and chose to ignore my advice and you’re trying to pick him up this week, you probably missed your chance. Zach Miller and Vernon Davis are now both banged up a bit, which only adds to the fantasy-TE-craze, so unless you are the #1 waiver position this week, I’d suggest you try to convince the players in front of you to pick up other players instead. And that’s a great segue because this week’s “Deep Sleep” could be that other player.

As I’ve mentioned before, this season has been really strange. I bet after your draft, you looked over your roster and you felt really good about the results. Probably too good. You look at your opponent’s rosters and scoff. “You actually drafted Darren McFadden? What an idiot! No wonder you rank in the bottom half every year. I got both Maurice Jones-DrewandRay Rice! This league is mine… All… mine…” And yet, fast-forward to the halfway point in the fantasy season and odd things have elapsed: you’re stuck at 4-3 and among those 3 running-backs, it is Run-DMC that has taken the cake – and he didn’t even play for 2 weeks. The player with DMC happened to also draft Arian Foster and is at 6-1. You try desperately to trade MJD for DMC, but after 1 long painful day of anticipation, your trade is – wait for it – rejected. What is going on? How do you make sense of this parity-drenched season? Yes, there will always be busts and unexpected studs, but how in the world did MJD become more of a sleeper than a lock week-to-week?

Well, Nick Bakay at NFL.com has some advice for you, and I think it makes a lot of sense. This is the season of the Jersey Shore “grenade”. They may not look attractive, but you sometimes have to take it for the best of the team. His main example? Ryan Fitzpatrick. I guess I’m not the only one riding the Fitzpatrick band-wagon! He spends the majority of his article arguing that Fitzpatrick, the hot waiver-wire commodity, is a better fantasy QB than first or second round pick, Drew Brees.

Anyway, enjoy the article here: link. Great analysis. Decent picks. Wish he included a picture of Jersey Shore, though.